[Laura Freeborn]

CfPS was commissioned by the Department of Health to help support scrutiny and accountability as the health system changes in response to the Health and Social Care Act. This programme is currently supporting 15 areas to achieve this locally; the learning from their work will be shared with the rest of the sector in early 2013.

To complement this CfPS also recruited an additional area, Leeds to look specifically at the development of Healthwatch and how overview and scrutiny could seek to strengthen the procurement process. The learning from this work with Leeds is detailed in the attached, in the form of a case study with example questions that other scrutiny committees may find useful.